According to a report by Strategy Analytics, smartphone shipments in general fell 5 percent in the second quarter of the current year, 2012. The market for smartphones in the second quarter of last year was 25.2 million, while this year’s second quarter only brought 23.8 million smartphones to the US consumer. In addition, Android lost ground to iOS, falling four points to 56 percent of the smartphone market.

While Android remains the top platform by volume in the US, Apple’s iOS is gaining, having risen 10 percentage points in the same period of time as last year, from 23 percent to 33 percent. We can only assume that the release of the iPhone 5, which many pundits believe customers are waiting for, causing a lull in current iPhone sales, will only increase Apple’s rising fortunes in the smartphone market.

The drop in smartphone shipments is one of the slowest rates of growth ever, according to the analytics company that did the research. They attribue this to the volatile economy, the maturing penetration of smartphones among users, and many carriers enforcing stricter upgrade policies to enhance profits. Whatever the reason, the sales of new devices overall are slowing down a bit.

Apple’s iPhones, however, are bucking that trend, selling 7.9 million units in Q2 2012, in contrast with a lower 5.9 million units in Q2 2011. This is in addition to the iPhone lull that everyone seems to like to point to, especially after Apple’s earnings call.

Not surprisingly, Blackberry smartphones fell from 11 percent to 7 percent in the last year. Windows Phone 7, only represented in the “Other” category, slipped from 1.4 percent to 1.0 percent of the market.